Take it home.

BUMP 2014 is over.  Regular sleeping habits have been restored.  We learned so much and now it's time to take it home.  It was a great time full of fun, energy, and a lot of work.  But it doesn't stop at "that was a great trip".  Through the morning sessions, team devotions, and the work we did with our partner churches, we learned a lot.  It can't be left at "God taught me so much".  No, that powerful statement must be coupled with an equally powerful one: "...and I'm ready to use it".

In the eight days of BUMP, we saw God continuously at work in mighty ways.  We tangibly saw the workings of prayer, we heard testimonies of obedience and its fruit.  We saw authenticity.  We saw the importance of the local church and the impact of the local church.

Now it's our turn to take it back to our churches and our communities.  To reach those that we know, and people yet to met, with the Good News.  Some truths I'm taking home from this trip with new fervor:

• Submit to the will of God for your life and expect awesome things.
• Pray.  Believe in prayer's power. And trust God with it.
• Be what you need to be in your community.
• God truly makes beauty from ashes.
• Do justice and have mercy.
• Doing God's work is fun.

See you next time BUMP!

Bump Adventures at Payne Ave.

We have had an amazing week here at Payne Avenue! The first day we had over 40 kids come out and more kids have been coming each day inviting their friends, family, and neighbors.

From prayer walks in some nice hot Minnesota weather to singing VBS songs and making crafts, it has been quite the adventure. God is doing some great things in many unexpected ways. Wednesday was what felt like the longest day however we were excited to have the most number of kids yet! 70 kids!!!

Yesterday was what one of our students called "Warfare Thursday". It was a hard day with many of our students being tired and kids not listening. Yet in the midst of the chaos God was still at work in the hearts of the kids. One of our students was able to personally lead a little girl to Christ for the first time who she has been building a relationship with from last year, a few other kids also accepted Christ this week so praise God for that.

One lesson we've learned and have put into practice all week is what we like to call "10-90". Life is made up of 10% of what happens to you and 90% of how you choose to respond to it. That has been helpful for our group in helping us choose to have positive attitudes even when it gets hard. Looking forward to our last day and our Carnival on Sunday :)

Day 5 - from God completely.

"Can we go to Feed My Starving Children on Thursday morning?"

It was so encouraging during our prep time before coming to BUMP to hear the students request to serve on our morning off.   Over a four hour period this morning, we were a part of providing meals for 150 kids for a year.  And it fit in so well with what we've been talking about in our morning sessions -- God's heart for social justice.

In John 21, three different times Jesus asks Simon Peter 'do you love me?' and after hearing Peter's response, 'yes', he replied 'feed my lambs...take care of my sheep...feed my sheep'.  Reading that passage in a discussion time yesterday, we could feel the vastness of the emotion in that conversation.  There is incredible compassion. Love. Love for His children, all of them. Passion.  And he wants to show that through us.

Arriving at our site this afternoon, each one of us was depleted of all energies. It was so evident that if anything good came from our tired, sometimes crabby selves tonight, it was from God completely.   And boy did He meet us. The night was dripping with God's mercy for our tiredness, His energy and love flowing through us, and His patience we were practicing.  God met us in very tangible ways this week.  In this weakness, God's greatness was glorified.

The Dangers of Pride

As a high school teacher, I know that students are often the best teachers, and this was emphasized to me as a group of first graders reminded me of an important lesson during Kids Club at Cross Cultural today.

The topic was of the day was sin and forgiveness, and the pirate skit had done a great job of showing dishonesty and cruelty and the mercy of forgiveness for wrongs offered by the Captain. During the discussion portion of the program, the students were asked to all stand up and then sit down when something was said that they had done before. “Sit down if you’ve ever lied,” the leader said. All of us sat down except two little boys. Everyone looked at them and thought, “Okay, you’re lying right now.” One other little boy tugged on the shirt of a boy still standing as if to say, “I know you should be sitting. I can know nothing about you and be pretty sure that you have lied in your 7 years of life.” But the boys kept standing and kept standing through many other statements of the wrongdoings we so often experience as normal human beings.

“Sit down if you’ve ever said something mean to a friend.”

“Sit down if you’ve ever disobeyed your parents.”

“Sit down if you’ve ever broken a promise.”

As the boys kept standing, they kept getting more confident. At one point, one of the little boys was raising his hands in victory because he had supposedly never done anything wrong. And I get it—he’s seven and is trying to be cool or funny or whatever, but to me it was really profound. It struck me because even though we don’t run through a checklist and do a stand up/sit down activity all the time, I think there are a lot of us that act the same way. We think we’ve got life under control, and we don’t see the sins lurking beneath. We run around with our hands raised in victory thinking we’re at least better than most people. What tragedy! If we can stay out of trouble ourselves, there’s no need for God.

The best place to be during this discussion was sitting because it was acknowledging the need for mercy and forgiveness. My heart broke for these two little boys who didn’t get that yet, and it broke for myself as I realize how often pride creeps up in me and I don’t acknowledge my total dependence on God’s mercy.

In Deuteronomy 8, Moses is speaking to the nation of Israel about entering the Promised Land.

“ 11 Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. 12 Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, 13 and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, 14 then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God.”

Just like Israel, when pride creeps into our hearts, we forget all that God has done for us.

I am thankful to these children for the reminder of the forgiveness I need for the pride in my heart. I pray that they understand that it’s okay to be broken and humbly ask for forgiveness at some point in their lives, maybe even this week during BUMP.

Guest Blogger - Desiree Anderson, BUMP Twin Cities City Team

VBS Day 3 and interesting interactions

SHEF church had another amazing day with Cross Cultural EFC and Epworth Church.  We had new kids come to VBS and today we talked about forgiveness with a mouse trap.  It was great to see the kids get drawn in when talking about the time I stole a yo-yo from a store as a kid and how I got a chance to seek God's forgiveness.  We had a few kids stay back and open up a little bit after Bible time which was awesome!  The kids are really starting to connect with us and open up to God, which is answers to prayers.  My favorite part of the day is having a kid from VBS pray for our day!  It is moving/touching.

Also this evening we got to take some time to walk around downtown with some from our group to see some of the big buildings and the Mississippi River.  It was great to see many different kinds of people walking around while we went to the Nicollett Mall.  One of our kids started to talk with a gentleman who seemed to be homeless and really opened up to them.  Eventually they found a hot dog cart and bought him some food.  It was really cool and a blessing to see the hearts of our students be pouring out in the kids and just during our free time.

God is doing something great so keep praying for all He is doing through all of us BUMPers!

SHEF Church ~ Nick Waldron

Day 1 and Day 2 Going strong with the pirates

So Day 1 at VBS was amazing.  We did not let any heat stop us from doing what God wanted us to do.  He even gave us shade for a bit :)  We had 30 kids come and experience what it meant to be a pirate and live for God.  Pretty awesome!  There were a lot of excited kids there and even one came dressed like a captain.  It was great to start to get to know the kids and really teach them about God and who He is.  God is real and there are so many ways we know that is true!

The service project SHEF church did was amazing too!  We helped Epiworth church out by pulling weeds from their plant beds in the parking lots.  It was messy and dirty, but we had fun doing it.  We even found some interesting bugs!

Day 2 was an amazing day as well.  One of our goals as a youth group is to have the attendance double from the beginning of the week.  Well we had 30 the first day and the 2nd we had 35 come and that is with 12 new people, which is awesome.  It was another great day of learning about God and seeing the Pirates go through a storm.  The kids really did connect with learning Jonah and the Whale and how he handled hard times/storms in his life.  We even had a kid want to pray at the closing program, which was really a blessing to all of us to see.  So God is working great things so keep praying for our group and the kids.

Then at our service project we had fun with mulch and clipping unwanted tree branches.  It was great to do so much and had fun doing it.

We are excited to see what God is doing so pray for strength and energy for today since this is the point most people start to drag...but right now I am going to get some coffee!

~ SHEF Church, Nick W.

Day 3 -- Obedience is beautiful.

Cathy listened to the Lord and her life got flipped upside down.  She went way past her comfort zone into awkward, into “what?!”, into “how?”.  She heard the Holy Spirit guiding her into a crazy new adventure.  The love of God is over flowing through her faithful work onto those dearly loved by God who are living in homelessness.   

Isaiah said in the 58th chapter “Some of you will rebuild the deserted ruins of your cities.  Then you will be known as a rebuilder of walls and restorer of homes.”  Cathy is a rebuilder of cars, but so much more, Cathy is a rebuilder of lives – restoring hope, restoring dignity in Jesus’ name who is the Great Rebuilder.  The Cornerstone, the Firm Foundation.

14,000 without homes. 14,000 souls.

Half are our age.

It shouldn’t be acceptable in our culture.

Don’t ignore what’s right in front of you.

We need to do what we can, everything we can.

What did God bless you with? bless others with it.

The Holy Spirit living vibrantly. 

Creatively calling. 

Obstacles to swerve around.

Faith + action; passion + truth = fire.
Obedience is beautiful.

Day 2 -- Block party!

Getting ready -- tonight was the block party.  Two days of passing out fliers and covering the neighborhood with prayer so far has not returned void.  Filling water balloons offered a cool relief in the 105 degree heat index.  The inflatable bouncy maze grew bigger as did our excitement. Setting up the cotton candy machine next to the sno-cone maker on the front lawn began to draw a crowd for the evening's festivities.  In the time of decorating and preparation we got to know our co-workers from Sioux Falls, we came together as a team and all put in our share of the work.  We are excited about will learn while working with them.  Our block party was full of many faces we recognized from handing out fliers as well as new faces.   The street was packed with families streaming in from every direction. Talking about our favorite things of the day, one of the student's immediate response was "seeing the excitement on peoples faces".

We cannot wait for the first night of VBS tomorrow night.  We have a packed afternoon of preparation before the kids come but know that God has gone before us on this trip and He answers our prayers.  We are enjoying serving God in what is turning out to be an increasingly incredible experience.

Day 1 -- Dios Te Bendiga

Sunday morning was our group's first experience at a bilingual church, New Salem Church - Iglesia Nueva Salem. After singing a couple songs of worship in English and Spanish, we walked around the room greeting our brothers and sisters, "Dios te Bendiga" (God bless you), which broke down barriers and quickly made us feel like family.  Several times throughout the morning's service we were thanked and acknowledged as a big encouragement to the church and community, which in turn was a big encouragement to us.  After a great message we headed downstairs to enjoy a meal with the other BUMP group we are serving alongside. That delicious meal, Pupusas with cabbage slaw, ruined us for any and all of the tortilla meals we can experience at home.

Our afternoon was filled with prayer walking and handing out fliers.  Our night was filled with stories of being met with excitement, of children playing on the street,  and of a boy who couldn't wait to come hang out with us and wanted to stay with us that afternoon.  Many prayers were lifted on behalf of the people we met that afternoon.  If there was one thing we knew at the end of Sunday night, it was that we were excited for VBS and to see what awesome things God has in store for us this week.

Monday with Muhammad & Block Party

During our prayer walk today, we ran into Muhammad. Muhammad was sitting in his yard, with his friend - the name of his friend was impossible to understand, so he remains nameless. We approached Muhammad during our prayer walk with flyers for the block party, and he asked us what denomination we attended, we answered - after which he informed us that he was a muslim.

The conversation lasted around 50 minutes, during which we exchanged ideas about God, morality and politics. Fortunately, we spent most of our time talking about how a person finds himself to be 'right' with God. How can we be saved? Muhammad described his salvation system of works, and we offered to him our gracious God's system of forgiveness through justice via substitutionary atonement. It was a very typical gospel conversation with a Muslim, all the basic arguments were had, but one thing struck us more than anything else - we talked to him about the holiness of God and how the bible paints a clear picture that every human being born after Adam is wicked and corrupt to their core and can do nothing to please God, we explained that our bad will always outweigh our good - he was not thrilled with this idea. We prayed following our conversation with Muhammad that he would come to see how grave his sin is, and that he would repent and trust in Jesus.

Block Party!
Tonight we had our block party, it was awesome - we had way more kids and people than we've ever had before (in the past five years). We had prayed for that, especially as we switched our ministry for the week (in years past: soccer camp, this year: VBS). Many relationships were formed and we had 67 kids sign up for VBS! Praise God, I am excited to see what God does in all these kids and the families they represent.

The Wheel of Color turning to the Wheel of Mythicality.

So today for the SHEF team we teamed up with Cross Cultural to run a carnival to get the kids ready for the VBS we will be having this week.  Now we got to see quite a few kids come and play carnival games, eat hot dogs and snow cones, and get awesome spray paint pictures.  There was a lot of work done and great fun time to start to get to know kids and invite them to VBS.

God really brought back some great things to mind while I was leading a certain carnival game.  This carnival game is a bike wheel that has pieces of colored paper taped to the wheel and you spin it and hope it lands on the color you picked.  We called it Wheel of Color...original right :)  Anyways to where God taught...

SO as I was leading it I realized not many kids were getting involved with this game...so I had to spice it up and get people interested into trying it out.  This was done by yelling, "come spin the Wheel of Mythicality and win some candy!  Come you will win a prize every time."  Then as spinning the wheel to sing a song and get the kids excited by feeding on their anticipation.

Here is where God Jesus Juked me with some wisdom...  Today we read in Acts 10 and dealt with God preparing us and the kids for the Gospel.  Well we have our plans for VBS and we have prepared so long, but God wants to do so much.  He wants to take our "Wheel of Color" and make it the "Wheel of Mythicality!"

When we let God take control and let the Holy Spirit move then we will see an amazing thing work. That is what Peter learned in His vision in Acts 10.  Please pray that God will lead and we fully trust and give control to Him and not our brains.

Pounding the Pavement

Each year at BUMP we prayer walk around New Salem's South Minneapolis neighborhood. There are always many things to observe: people, businesses, sights, sounds... The goal of prayer walking is to observe and pray, pray in response to God's promptings and really anything that comes to mind. This year, heading into BUMP we stressed to our group the importance of refusing to give up during the walk. As we stressed this idea, we were not imagining our students sitting down on the green grass under the cool shade of a massive tree in Powderhorn Park, we were not predicting revolts against prayer walking. We were predicting what we felt in our own hearts, a fleshly desire for comfort which evidences itself in lazy walking, and wasted time. So, we came up with a phrase to combat wasted time and lazy walking: "Pound the Pavement."


Our goal this week is to expand God's kingdom. God's kingdom is expanded as little kids and adults become worshipers of Jesus. People are made into worshipers by believing in Jesus as Savior and Lord and they believe because they hear the gospel preached, no other way. Since our Kids Club program at New Salem preaches the gospel, we did not want to underestimate the importance of "Pounding the Pavement" in order that we might promote and advertise the activities of the week. If no one shows up, no one hears the gospel. No one shows up if they are not invited. How simple of an idea. Most of the churches we partner with can teach us so much, but the reality of their ministry is that most of their parishioners do not plan very far into the future, as a result we must assume that the only people who will attend our Kids Club are those we ask - let's Pound the Pavement.

Site Update: New Salem
We had a fantastic day, a great church service and lunch at New Salem - prayer walking, and an evening rally. We are excited for the week!

God Bless,
VIVID Youth/First EFC, Sioux Falls